


We're Serious Space Exploring Professionals Here in Atlantis: The Compilation

by mylittleredgirl



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Humor, Unresolved Sexual Tension, harmless atlantis shenanigans, just out here living like it's 2005 and we're feeling no pain, one of those compilations of fanfics written in livejournal comments, update: and tumblr ficlets that would have been hidden in livejournal comments in the before times
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-26 12:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20930036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylittleredgirl/pseuds/mylittleredgirl
Summary: An ongoing archive of silly, angst-free, like-season-one-even-if-it's-not-season-one ficlets that haven't quite graduated into fics.





	1. the one with the alien prom

**Author's Note:**

> Livejournal Archaeology Note: 2006-ish. @ALC_punk wrote the first three lines, so she's entirely to blame.
> 
> There's mentions of vomit in this one, if you avoid that sort of thing. (That part's not Lyssie's fault.)

“_Dancing_.”

Elizabeth smiles at the disgust in John’s voice. “Yes, Colonel. Dancing.”

“You know, Colonel,” Rodney says, “that thing where you wear a formal tuxedo, and your date stands you up to go with the high school quarterback, who gets her pregnant and leaves her for the supermodel down the street.”

“But that’s so—” John cuts himself off. “Wait, that happened to you?”

“To a friend of mine,” Rodney dismisses it. “And it’s not like you haven’t had to do more humiliating things for the benefit of the city.”

John pauses, thinking of all the things he normally does his best not to think of.

Rodney takes that as an invitation: “You remember, the Countess of Alaria—”

“She was cute!”

“She was, like, _sixty_.”

“_Gentlemen_.” Elizabeth sounds mad, but she's smiling. At least, a little. It might be a sneer. “Regardless of past off-world indiscretions or senior proms, we’ve been invited, and we’re going to go.”

“But Elizabeth—”

“That’s the nature of diplomacy, gentlemen. I’ll be waiting by the limo with a camera.”

An hour later, and after the third time Elizabeth sent Rodney back to his quarters to change into something appropriate, John is pissed, itchy and _bored_. He never much liked his dress uniform, and Elizabeth is wearing something far too... eh. Women on the Callusan planet are supposed to dress in a respectable fashion and it’s altogether too Victorian for his taste. (At least, Elizabeth said, the Callusans didn’t insist on pink taffeta or side ponytails.)

But really, if he has to dress up, he’d like to have something nice to look at. He can actually see _less_ of Elizabeth’s bare skin than he normally can.

Not that he’s supposed to care about that sort of thing when it comes to his boss, but he decided a while ago to stop feeling guilty about checking her out, because it was that or let the guilt drive him crazy. He likes her. He really likes her. He thinks she likes him. But... well, running a massive war operation in an alien galaxy is a crappy time to get a serious crush, and he’s pretty sure she’ll shoot him down cold if he ever actually asks.

He just hopes the next planet they visit favors beachwear and she’s as ardently diplomatic about that.

“Stop pacing before you break something,” Elizabeth orders, sounding bored and frustrated herself where she’s lounging in the puddle-jumper co-pilot seat. She’s got to be warm, too, in a high-necked blouse and a layered jacket/skirt thing that looks like it’s made from thick velvet drapes. “Tell me your prom horror story.”

“Don’t have one.”

“Don’t tell me you’re the one who stole Rodney’s date.”

He snorts. “No. Didn’t go. I’d just moved, didn’t know anyone.”

“She said no,” Elizabeth guesses.

“I didn’t ask,” he says, shrugging. “And, strangely enough, she also ended up pregnant—but he was the captain of the chess team.”

“Wow. I thought mine was bad. He’d never had a drink before in his life and puked all over my dress. I held his head in the men’s room for half the night. You hear things in a men’s room on prom night you can never un-hear.”

“Yikes.”

“At least it gave me an excuse to burn the taffeta.”

John kicks at one of the bulkheads, then stops before Elizabeth can accuse him of being destructive again. “I hate dancing,” he admits.

“I figured.”

“You like it?”

“On puke-free evenings. It’s a requirement of diplomacy that you learn to hobnob with the elite in their natural environment.” She gives him an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry if you don’t know how. This is an alien planet with alien dances; it’s acceptable to ask for instructions.”

She makes it look awfully easy. He tries to imagine her in pink taffeta and a side ponytail. He can’t do it, but it’s reassuring to know that she wasn’t _born_ this classy.

Rodney finally returns and Elizabeth deems him socially acceptable, so they take off in their makeshift limo. The Callusan settlement is a bit of a flight away from the gate, so he and Rodney have more time for complaining and fidgeting while Elizabeth gives them point-by-point instructions on how not to turn this into a major diplomatic incident.

When she’s done with her list, John says, “I wouldn’t have puked on you, you know.”

Rodney looks back and forth between them. “Ew. What?”

Elizabeth rolls her eyes. “Yes, well, I’ll settle for not ending this evening at war, okay?”

Rodney persists: “What’s with the puking?”

John ignores him. “Think we can convince them to play Stairway to Heaven?”

“I did miss out on that one the first time around,” Elizabeth says. She sounds a little regretful.

He doesn’t say it in front of Rodney, but after landing, John takes the opportunity to help her out of the jumper with her yards and yards of dress material. “One dance,” he offers. “That’s all you’ll get out of me.”

She smiles. “And that’s all I ask.”


	2. The Last Word

It’s 3 a.m., and that’s probably why she says it: “Shut up.”  
  
John pauses mid-rant, surprised. That’s not normally in the Doctor Weir Handbook of Management. “What did you say?”  
  
“Just... shut up! You're arguing this point for no reason.”  
  
Actually, that might be true. He cared about their first point of contention—trading with the planet-of-the-week with insufficient security—but now they’re in a heated argument about desalination-tank cleaning schedules or something equally... really really stupid.  
  
He’s pretty sure she doesn’t care about that either. “So are you.”  
  
“Fine. Then—”  
  
“_You_ shut up.”  
  
A smirk is threatening at the corner of Elizabeth's mouth. “I said it first.”  
  
“I _thought_ it first.”  
  
She rolls her eyes and huffs, but she’s officially grinning. “You’re impossible.”  
  
It’s probably kind of sick that his favorite expression on her is _exasperation_. “So’re you.”  
  
She weighs that for a moment. “Takes one to know one, I guess.”  
  
“That’s why we get along so well.”  
  
There it is again: exasperation. Their version of ‘getting along’ lately has involved lots of bullet-pointed memos on her part with increasing amounts of bold type, and lots of bursting into her office at 3 am on his part to argue about trade laws and crew rotations and the minutiae of scheduled maintenance, apparently.  
  
“Go to bed, Colonel. You’re not making sense anymore.” She waves him off and turns back to her computer.  
  
“You first.”  
  
“I said it first,” she mutters.  
  
True. “Do you want me to leave your office, or don’t you?”  
  
Her eyes narrow. “I have sixteen more reports to revise. You’re _welcome_ to stay.”  
  
He plants his ass on the corner of her desk. “I’ll give you ten minutes. I can start whistling.”  
  
“John...”  
  
It’s been a long time since she’s said his given name like that, like he’s a thorn in her side as a person and not as her second-in-command. Three weeks, at least, since they’ve spent any nonessential time together.  
  
“Elizabeth, when was the last time you slept?”  
  
She pauses.  
  
He doesn’t let her come up with an answer. “Unacceptable. If you can’t remember—”  
  
“When’s the last time _you_ slept?” She doesn’t even look up. “I thought so.”  
  
“Another reason why you should give in now. I’m not leaving this office until you do.” He’s been thinking, in the last ninety seconds, that it’s awful that he hardly gets to see her anymore and he needs to do something about it. A sit-in strike wouldn’t be his first solution, but if it works, who’s going to criticize?  
  
“My couch is your couch.”  
  
He starts whistling.  
  
“Will you _please_—”  
  
“Hey, rules are rules.”  
  
She tolerates it for about a minute, then raises her head to shoot him a tired glare. “You fight dirty.”  
  
“Yes. I do.”  
  
“You know there’s nothing to prevent me from coming back here after you leave.”  
  
“Ah, but that would be childish.”  
  
She sighs dramatically and stalks past him. She doesn’t acknowledge that he’s following her until he steps on her heel.  
  
“Are you seriously escorting me back to my quarters?”  
  
“I don't trust you.”  
  
She glares. “John, I am perfectly capable of putting myself to bed. And you’re starting to annoy me.”  
  
That isn’t much of a declaration, really, since he’s been annoying her for years. “Elizabeth?”  
  
“_What?_”  
  
He smiles winningly. “Shut up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Found somewhere in the annals of livejournal comments!
> 
> I couldn't bear to edit out the line about the Dr. Weir Handbook of Management, but I re-watched the pilot the other day... and literally the first thing she does in their first scene alone together is tell him to shut up. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	3. Shady

The ironic twists of Elizabeth’s life path hit her at the strangest times, like when she’s tromping through a bayou, dressed entirely in leather, on her way to sell explosives to an arms dealer.  
  
Not just entirely in leather, but entirely in _lace-up_ leather that shows inches of bare skin between the panels and doesn’t let her wear a bra. 20-year-old Elizabeth Weir would not approve—co-president of the Brown University chapter of _Feminist Action Now!_; spent three hours in a police van for protesting arms sales to Latin America; madly infatuated with a long-haired vegan Philosophy major whose entire wardrobe was made out of hemp. 20-year-old Elizabeth would have an absolute _fit._  
  
Elizabeth Weir from three years ago would be none too pleased with her either. (That would be 38-year-old Elizabeth Weir—negotiator of disarmament treaties; staunch gun control advocate; completely unaware that she’s about to have a paradigm-shattering meeting with the President of the United States.) That inner voice is harder to silence, but the truth is that Earth weapons technology has already fallen into Pegasus black-market circulation after two years of missions gone wrong, occasional theft, and the ever-duplicitous Genii. The Wraith computer module they’ll get in trade for a minimal amount of C-4 is worth a few more blemishes on Elizabeth’s moral purity.  
  
And her dignity, for that matter. All John told her was: “Teyla says you’ll have to dress like an Athosian to keep our cover,” like it was no big deal. From the way he turned bright red when he first saw her outfit, Elizabeth suspects Teyla didn’t share the entire plan with him ahead of time.  
  
Teyla didn’t share the entire plan with _Elizabeth_ either, but she didn’t need to, because sweetening a negotiation with a revealing neckline and a bit of charm isn’t an alien concept. Elizabeth’s main concern is that she’s too pale to pull off being Athosian, but Teyla told her that’s to her benefit.  
  
“Arat’Amar has a renowned preference for exotic women,” Teyla explained. Elizabeth marveled over how the pallor of _spending all day in front of a computer monitor and never going outside_ makes her ‘exotic’ among subsistence cultures. John got even redder.  
  
So, Elizabeth can deal with all of _that_, especially since they really need the intel from the Wraith device, and Teyla will be with her, and John and Ronon will be nearby with guns in case things go sideways (Elizabeth’s opposition to guns has waned _significantly_ since coming to this galaxy). Her biggest problem at the moment is the long distance from the Stargate to the rather disreputable trade settlement, because she’s hot and sweaty and her hair is sticking to her face, and she’s very aware of her partly-exposed back and the eyeballs drilling into her from behind.  
  
“John, stop staring at me.” She slaps a mosquito-like bug on her arm.  
  
Ahead, Ronon snickers.  
  
“I’m _guarding_ you,” John says.  
  
“Don’t we usually take jumpers if we have to travel this far?” She knows she’s whining, but she feels entitled, since he’s been staring at her ass for a mile and a half.  
  
“Nowhere to land. Wasn’t it just last week you said you wished you got out more?”  
  
She can _hear_ him checking her out, just from his voice. She slaps at another bug and then wipes sweat from her face. “John, stop–”  
  
“Not staring. Guarding. Watch out for that tree.”  
  
She rolls her eyes and steps over the fallen log. Truth be told, when they were gearing up in Atlantis and she was less hot and gross, she enjoyed the way John kept sneaking looks at her like he couldn’t help it. She even encouraged it by bending over her animal-hide pack at a few well-timed moments. She tries not to flirt with him too much, because it’s not fair to either of them when they really _can’t_, but it’s not like she’s going to be dressed like this forever.  
  
But she’s annoyed at the scratchy branches that have fallen over the road and the bugs and the heat, so she’d rather he not enjoy himself _too_ much.  
  
“Up there,” Ronon says, spotting the settlement well before Elizabeth can see it.  
  
“Are you ready?” Teyla asks.  
  
She doesn’t feel nearly as sexy _or_ charming as she did two miles ago, but she squares her shoulders. “Ready.” She turns back to John to get his confirmation before they split up.  
  
He smirks at her, then clears his throat. “I doubt there’s a shady arms dealer alive who could resist you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sparktober 2014.


	4. Ford said...

“Ford said it couldn’t be done.”  
  
Elizabeth gives him a sidelong look. Even with her breathing still unsteady, she manages to look a little bit threatening. “You’ve been discussing our private life with Ford, now?”  
  
His ears heat up. He thought he’d trained that reflex out of himself, but apparently mental discipline is no match for Elizabeth Weir wearing nothing at all. “Not _that_,” he says quickly. “You spending a whole day without going into the control tower.”  
  
Elizabeth checks her watch. “There’s still time, you know.”  
  
He feels like he swallowed a stone. “Hey, hey, it’s not like I made a bet or anything. I’d never say anything that… Elizabeth—”  
  
She looks pissed off for only another second before an impish smile breaks across her face. “Gotcha.”  
  
He scowls, but it’s hard to be too upset when she’s still so, well, _naked_.  
  
“You’re too easy,” she teases.  
  
He smiles smugly. “That’s why you like me so much.”  
  
“Well, I don’t know how much I like you, really.” She crawls toward him like a panther (a really, really sexy panther). “Maybe a little.”  
  
“More than a little.”  
  
“A _little_ more.”  
  
When she gets close enough, he catches her lips in a kiss. God, she tastes just… _awesome_.  
  
“Okay,” she admits. “I do like you.”  
  
He takes a breath. He doesn’t usually ask these kinds of questions, but around her, he can’t seem to help it. “Just _like_ me?”  
  
She swats a hand at his chest instead of answering, but the shy little smile on her face is answer enough.  
  
He laughs, and kisses her again, and doesn’t tell her that he just won a bet with Ford about _that_, too.


	5. just a little gazing between friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nine times Elizabeth catches John looking when he isn't supposed to (and one time he is).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally this was written around a set of pictures that @quiet_jay posted to the Sparktober community. the pics have long been lost, so you'll just have to imagine relevant screencaps of John looking like he's been caught staring.

1\. She snatches the covers back over herself with a huff. "_Privacy_, John. Don't you have a briefing to prepare for?"  
  
"Carson ordered you in for a physical exam. I'm just making sure you don't run back to your office before he gets back."  
  
She glares. "I'm sure you have to do that from two feet away."  
  
He shuffles back a few steps. "Sorry."  
  
When his eyes drift back down toward her (now covered) legs, she's sure of it: "You're not sorry." She can't think of a way to get back at him (or get back some of her dignity) until: "When's the last time _you_ had a physical examination, Colonel?"  
  
He turns a little red, like she suggested something more fun than a retaliatory medical procedure. "You know," he says, "I think I have a briefing to prepare for."  
  
She smirks at his departing back and then tries to forget that warm frisson of _interest_ that went up her spine when she caught him looking. That sort of thing is inappropriate on the best of days, but it's definitely not a good topic for thought when Carson's about to take her pulse.

2\. "There," she says, and points. "Do you see that?"  
  
She's been noticing the occasional burst of color on the horizon the past few nights, but she's always been alone. When John came out to ask her a question about scheduling (as a segue into fishing for compliments over what a great job he did on the Sikarus mission), she asked him to watch with her to see if it happened again.  
  
That was at least ten minutes ago, but he hasn't complained about boredom yet. He's probably just as relieved as she is to have a break with no disasters and pleasant, quiet company.  
  
It flashes again, this time pink. "Maybe it's an aurora," she says. "Something seasonal. It's beautiful, isn't it?"  
  
He doesn't answer, and when she looks over, he's watching her instead of the sky.

3\. "Are you okay?"  
  
She sees his eyes for just a second over the barrier before he slaps his hand over his face. It's so slapstick that she laughs out loud, because it's not ridiculous enough that the decon showers are so _ice_ cold that she yelped, or that they're covered in alien goop in the first place, but the walls between decon stalls have to be built for people a head shorter than they are. (That, or the Ancients have no sense of personal privacy; after all, none of the crew quarters have locking doors.) She can't _not_ laugh when John is bright red, like he – well, like he looked over the wall and saw her naked.  
  
"I didn't mean to!" he says, still blind through his hand, and she never really thought of _embarrassed_ as a sexy tone of voice until right now. "You're okay, though, right?"  
  
The first time a man has seen her naked in two years and she's covered in bright orange mystery sauce. When she took this assignment, she knew she'd have to do without decent coffee and reality television and Earth conveniences for the duration, but someone really should have warned her that she'd be giving up sex for –  
  
The decontamination solution coming from the shower head is freezing and she's still thinking about things she definitely shouldn't, her body heating up like she and John are in this room for a much different purpose. "You know," she says, and there's a split-second of decision-making over whether she should be responsible or just climb over the dividing wall between them and jump him, never mind that Carson's waiting outside and they're professional colleagues and _all of that_. "I think I figured out what this orange stuff does."

4\. Even though mind-hopping aliens were to blame for this latest disaster, Elizabeth still expects John to be angry when she goes to the brig to let him out.  
  
After all, she locked him up – not to mention _slapping_ him, and yelling at him, and acting well outside the bounds of decorum that she stays in when she's not otherwise possessed. It's fuzzy now, but she's pretty sure her temporary alien mind-share tried to seduce him over to her cause and only locked him up (and slapped him) when he declined her offer.  
  
"Sorry about that," she says, deactivating the electrical field around his cell. What else can she say?  
  
John looks her up and down. His gaze pauses on her mouth.  
  
"What?" Did she kiss him? She thinks she'd remember that. It would piss her off, too, because then she'd be two for two on alien mind-control resulting in her making out with him, and at some point that's going to raise questions (if not about her relationship with her military counterpart, then about what the hell these Pegasus aliens are really after).  
  
He licks his lips. She doesn't think he means to. "Nothing. Just making sure you're really you."  
  
Does he sound _disappointed?_  
  
She lets him go without further comment, but checks John's name first when Carson sends her the results of everyone's test for alien presence.

5\. She feels Varshan's forearm squeezing air from her throat as she struggles, sees John out of the corner of her eye aiming his weapon toward them, and then feels _fire_.  
  
Some part of her brain, far detached from her body, tells her it's a good thing the pain knocks the wind out of her, otherwise she'd be screaming – a bad idea when they're in hostile territory, enemy security forces are shooting at her rescue party, and the alien dignitary who was supposed to guarantee her safety at the negotiating table just tried to kill her.  
  
John is crouching over her when she gets enough air to speak. "You're going to be okay," he says, and a glance behind her at Varshan's smoking body tells her that she didn't get the brunt of the blast, not even close.  
  
For a moment, he doesn't move, like he's forgotten everything except her, and that's compelling beyond words when she's hurt and terrified and he just _shot_ someone to save her life.  
  
She grabs his thigh for leverage and tries to pull herself to sitting. "Get me out of here."  
  
He doesn't let go of her until they're back home.

6\. She spends 36 hours in the infirmary. She sleeps on and off, usually waking up because someone is checking her blood pressure or doing something with an I.V., and it's usually Carson or Jennifer or Jake (her favorite nurse, who has a secret collection of Audrey Hepburn movies that he lends her whenever she's confined here).  
  
This time it's John. Her throat's dry, but he's poking at the tubes slowly feeding into her veins, so she has to croak out: "I don't think you're qualified to do that."  
  
He shrugs and sits down in the chair next to her bed. He looks like he's trying to work his way up to saying something – maybe _I'm sorry,_ since her final injury of the mission did come from his weapon even though she was already guaranteed a long infirmary stay before he got to her.  
  
In the end, she can't stay awake long enough to find out. Just before she drops off, his fingers curl around hers.

7\. "Admit it," John teases, in the control tower, in front of everyone. He's looking her up and down, and she almost looks different enough with a tan to warrant it. "You were wrong and we were right."  
  
She feels some of that tension she shed during her three-day vacation (if it can be called a vacation when the three men in front of her practically shoved her and Teyla through the Stargate at gunpoint) come rushing back.  
  
"Yes," Teyla says next to her, quite graciously given the smirks on everyone's faces, "it was indeed relaxing."  
  
John turns to Elizabeth next, smug-bastard grin on his face. He's a little too eager, she thinks, to get a confession from her before she's even changed back into her uniform. Elizabeth has been sunning on a beach, not melting away her brain.  
  
"John, what did you break while we were gone?"

8\. Jesus, he looks like she just kicked his favorite puppy.  
  
"It's not that I don't appreciate the invitation," she explains, and she can't believe she's having this conversation in the control room. She can't believe _John's_ having this conversation in the control room, unless he's trying to make a point that there's nothing inappropriate about him inviting her to be his partner at a _fertility_ ceremony of all things. Even if it's plant fertility – new crops and so forth – they've been playing around a line that neither of them are ready to cross. She _thought_ neither of them were ready to cross it. She must be reading too much into it. "I can't drop everything and spend a whole night on New Athos. _Especially_ if you're away from the city too."  
  
His features close up. "Forget I asked," he says through a tight jaw, and turns away.  
  
So much for it being a platonic, appropriate, control-room-safe invitation.  
  
"_John,_" she goes to grab his arm and drag him out to the balcony where they can talk like humans instead of like leaders, and where she can maybe get some idea of what's going on in that convoluted psyche of his. He moves fast when he wants to, though, and he's gone before she can think of a control-room-safe way to stop him.

9\. When she gets fed up with his bad mood, it's her turn to shove him through the Stargate for a vacation.  
  
The plan was five uninterrupted days – more than deserved after three years – but the Wraith don't have the courtesy of checking Elizabeth's day planner for convenient times to show up on long-range sensors.  
  
She feels guilty enough about it that she goes to get him in person, and finds him unshaved and not a little hung over.  
  
"This is your idea of a vacation?" She expected to find him in town watching the Zindrizi rodeo that draws such a crowd this time of year. She expected to find him looking _happy_, at least.  
  
She drags a second beach chair over to sit next to him.  
  
"Clearing my head," he says. "Trying to figure things out."  
  
_This is your idea of clearing your head?_ she wants to ask, but goes with a more neutral, "Any conclusions?"  
  
He smirks and then looks at his hands, squinting against the bright sun. "This place isn't that great without company," he says, then looks at her. "And I hate the Wraith."  
  
His gaze feels like it's burning. She supposes she can be honest here, thirty light-years from their jobs and their people. It's disappointing that they have to travel that far. "I think the same things, you know."  
  
She reaches into the space between them and he takes her hand. Maybe there's a happy medium somewhere, a compromise between attraction and duty that she hasn't considered.  
  
He squeezes her fingers. "Thanks," he tells her, which is more than she expected him to say and less than either of them means.  
  
She relaxes into her chair and closes her eyes. The Wraith can wait ten minutes.

10\. The dress turns heads – more because she's so rarely out of uniform than because it's anything special – but she has to look around the party to find the one she's looking for. He's chatting with Teyla, who nods at him to indicate he should turn around.  
  
Elizabeth gets her reward when John does a double-take. "What's this?"  
  
She shrugs. There's a warm breeze from the open wall panels behind her, and the skirt kisses her legs. "A small change. You do always say I need to loosen up."  
  
There's a question in his eyes, but his posture changes into a stance more relaxed and flirty. "If you're quoting me, we must be in trouble."  
  
She notices Teyla backing away, giving them space.  
  
"Well," Elizabeth says, finally letting herself enjoy the way he looks at her, "you're always good for trouble."


	6. "What's Next?"

For all their incredibly detailed — and apparently mind-reading — technology, their alien captors apparently can't read sarcasm for shit.  
  
"I'm still not getting used to that," John says as the scenery around them blurs alarmingly and then settles into its new incarnation. "This I did not expect."  
  
Elizabeth tilts her head back and looks up... way up. "You did tell our 'interrogator' that you were going to Disneyland."  
  
He was quoting, and he should probably have known better, because even if Elizabeth should get the reference (she must have seen the Superbowl at least once, or she has no business wearing an American flag on her uniform), weird Pegasus aliens definitely won't. This place gives him the creeps. "Elizabeth, our interrogator wasn't real. This _place_ isn't real. For all I know we're in the infirmary right now after a bad trip on—"  
  
"_Don't_ say it," she tells him crossly. "Whatever it is, don't say it."  
  
"Happy thoughts," John echoes. She's right — these fantasies seem to have substance, at least while they're around. The interrogator who so recently vanished into thin air gave him a left hook to the jaw he's still feeling. Too bad he isn't usually too positive after being abducted by aliens, even if they — in a bizarre and crudely-rendered way — seem to be trying to give him and Elizabeth everything they want. "So, are these your thoughts or mine?"  
  
Elizabeth reaches out and traces her hand over a comically oversized park bench. "Not mine. I've never been to Disneyland."  
  
"_Never?_"  
  
She shrugs.  
  
"I haven't been since I was a kid—"  
  
"I can tell," Elizabeth says, indicating how everything is towering over their heads.  
  
They've been in this fantastical nightmare for hours — if not days — and they aren't going to find a way out without figuring out a way to talk to their captors. They don't seem to be in active danger, even if they're captive. The food that magically materialized when Elizabeth said she was hungry was both edible and satisfying, and the only time either of them were actually _hurt_ was when he pretty much specifically requested a violent interrogation. It wasn't his smartest move. Both of them will reason better after some sleep.  
  
"We should see if they manifested a hotel for us, too," John suggests.  
  
It's a hike when the world around them is sized from a five-year-old's perspective. There are no fictional people in this world, just them, and it's spectacularly eerie.  
  
"I wonder where we _are_," Elizabeth says as the hotel comes into view.  
  
"I'll tell you where we're _not_," he starts, but then remembers that speaking things out loud tends to have swift, unintended consequences. He thinks it instead — they're not sharing a moonlit bath in the expansive steam pools west of the control tower, enjoying the bottle of rich Tavdian port to celebrate what was supposed to be the final flourish on establishing a successful trade agreement, having the time for long, un-hurried sex. The last time he even saw her naked was Tuesday, and that was just a flash as she was changing after a morning shower and he was mostly asleep after a long night shift.  
  
There's no one in the hotel, either. The first door they try is unlocked.  
  
"This is way too freaky," Elizabeth declares.

John opens his arms wide. "I think it's your turn to choose."  
  
She laughs, clearly punchy on exhaustion and how they may have actually found something in this galaxy stranger than the time he—  
  
_Not_ thinking about that. Not, not, not.  
  
"If I say where I'm thinking, we might never leave," she warns.  
  
He raises an eyebrow. "They can already read our memories. Mine haven't been particularly Disney-rated the last, oh, eight months or so." He knows their anniversary with more precision than that, actually, but she teased him the time he announced it had been exactly 100 days, so he keeps his exact tallies in his head now.  
  
"Oh, is that all? I could've sworn I caught you looking long before that."  
  
"Likewise."  
  
Finally, she sighs, and says aloud, "If it's not too much trouble, could we get a plain room with a _normal_ sized bed, please? And without all the... Mickey?"  
  
The room is already shifting and Elizabeth's already saying a polite "Thank you!" when John can't help himself and adds:  
  
"And a steam pool. And some chocolate," he adds, and gives her a _don't say I never did anything for you_ sort of shrug.  
  
Elizabeth glares at him. "You could have just requested the honeymoon suite."  
  
The room solidifies into something with an awful lot of rose petals.  
  
John winks. "Your wish is their command, it would seem."  
  
Before Elizabeth has the chance to order the ostentatious display away, John takes a good look around. He can probably replicate this when they get back to Atlantis, given enough time — and, of course, an as-yet-undetermined escape plan. He can definitely get close, anyway.  
  
And he isn't even an alien mind-reader.


	7. flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @vesperass-anuna on tumblr

The flowers are completely legitimate: it’s her birthday (which everyone knows, because Chuck gave Chef a list of everyone’s birthdays and she’s really into cake-decorating), and Elizabeth’s his _girlfriend_ (which everyone also knows, because this is the sort of city where a man can’t kiss his girlfriend in his own office in peace because Rodney doesn’t know how to _knock_). Besides, it’s not like he picked them. Or went out of his way to buy them. The herbalist who sells medicinal plants also sells flowers, and in exchange for something like two morning coffees’ worth of sugar. In fact, John would have been a jerk _not_ to buy them.

It’s still awkward as heck to bring them back through the Stargate, because there’s always a phalanx of armed marines pointed at the Stargate whenever they come through, just in case they’re bringing an apocalypse with them (which only happened _once_, but better safe than haunted by semi-transparent aliens for four days). Teyla offered to carry them in the box with the rest of the herbs, but he’s a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force, he flies alien spaceships into armed conflict on a regular basis, he can carry some alien roses in a filigreed blown-glass vase _like a man_.

Besides, Elizabeth’s embarrassed enough about the cake, so she might appreciate him drawing the good-natured teasing away from her. For someone who has no problem speaking in front of crowds/aliens/the President of the United States, Elizabeth is oddly uncomfortable with large groups of people being nice to her at the same time.

John likes knowing her that well, because the others don’t seem to notice (except Teyla, who always seems to have inside information into Elizabeth’s thought processes that even John doesn’t have). And, to be honest, he doesn’t mind the teasing. In a perfect world, he’d prefer that everyone mind their own business – he has never liked people commenting on his personal life – but there’s something nice about the broader Atlantis team passively accepting their relationship. He’s _happy _these days, for what feels like the first time in a decade (not that he was _unhappy_ before, but there’s a difference between being _okay_ with his life and what he is now). That’s changed something in him, something that makes him enjoy people laughing about him, because they’re laughing. Because he gets to join in. Because Elizabeth smiles when she overhears it, and she shares his understanding of how important it is that they have, in a way, given their expedition of intergalactic explorers permission to build lives out here away from Earth.

So it’s all right when Lorne falls in step with John when he comes through the Stargate and ribs, “Flowers for the boss, eh?”

John catches Elizabeth’s eye (she’s on the second level, smiling indulgently at her returning off-world team, in a good mood in spite of the cake scene a few hours ago) and adds some fuel to the fire: “It’s hard to find quality diamonds in this galaxy.”

Lorne looks impressed. “Ring or earrings?”

“For me to know, Major,” John says with a wink, though he and Elizabeth rarely discuss the future beyond the next Wraith campaign. He doesn’t know if she’s even thought about it; he has, but the nature of his job gives him more downtime than hers. He’ll spend six hours alone in a cave somewhere waiting for a clear path to the Stargate with nothing to do but ponder the existential nature of _for better or worse_ when _worse_ involves space vampires, but she’s never more than five feet from her email.

Well, she’ll have to think about it now. Lorne might be reasonably good at holding state secrets on his own, but he’s close with Cadman, which means the whole city will be buzzing with rumors by the end of the week, and Elizabeth – well, Elizabeth is never one to let rumors pass her by without asking him for confirmation. (It’s not, you know, _fear_ that prevents him from bringing it up himself. It’s _strategy_.)

“Happy birthday,” he says when he reaches her, handing them over.

Her lips are pursed like she’s keeping in a smile, but she gives him a stern look. “I’m sure you _had_ to give these to me in front of everybody.”

(She thinks he’s bragging, when he flaunts their relationship in public. And he is, a little.)

“I have my reasons,” he tells her, and after a quick internal debate, decides not to press his luck and try for a kiss in the middle of the control tower. He might be _happy_, but he’s still a professional. “So,” he says, louder, to everyone pretending not to eavesdrop. “Did you guys leave us any cake?”


	8. from "Intruder"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sparktober 2020, day 1; image prompt.

(edit by [nhawk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhawk/pseuds/nhawk))

It’s strange, how much information they can share with just a look, how quickly he knows what she wants him to do, how thoroughly she seems to understand what he’s thinking.

He’s felt that before, of course, the sort of battlefield telepathy – he has it all the time with Teyla. He had it with Ford. Once in a blue moon, even Rodney. Guns in hand, enemies all around them, they’d be dead without a deep knowledge of their teammates’ instincts and abilities. 

It’s different, with Elizabeth. Because they’re not, usually, under fire – it works in the control tower with the city shields shuddering around them, but just as well when they’re hashing out new personnel assignments. Because there’s an extra charge to it, like their psychic exchange is carried over an invisible current. Because one of the first things he ever remembers thinking about her is _I will never understand this woman_. 

It’s to her credit, of course, that they’ve made it this far, because he continued willfully not understanding her at every opportunity until he had no choice: the Wraith were bearing down on them, and there wasn’t time for complete sentences. Earth sent a Colonel who didn’t let her get a word in, and John had to speak for both of them. John was going to climb into a jumper and launch himself into a hive ship on a one-way mission, and there aren’t words enough in the world to explain what he needed from her when he looked at her… but she gave it to him. 

Approval. Understanding. Last rites. Hers were the last eyes he’d look into before he died, and something between them feels locked open now, like she can always see into him a little deeper than he’s comfortable with, and not quite as deep as he wants.


	9. Nothing but Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sparktober 2020, day 2; prompt from @coraclavia

It’s not fair to say he brings her _nothing but trouble_ — sometimes he brings her souvenirs.

“What is it, exactly?” Elizabeth turns the something over in her hands, trying to figure out which end is up. It’s ceramic, mostly, with bits stuck in that look like glass. If it has a purpose, it eludes her. If John had a purpose for bringing it to her, that’s a mystery, too.

It’s usually an apology of some kind. They argue, he gets heated, and the next day he’ll very casually bring her a coffee or a danish or a weird alien bust made twigs and blue stones for eyes that seem to follow her around the office.

This time, she can’t come up with anything he’s done wrong.

“I don’t know. It’s a vase thing, maybe?” John shrugs, and gives her that grin he thinks is charming. “Just, you know. Saw it and thought of you.”

It _is_ a little charming, mostly because she knows he means well, even if he has somehow managed to make it through the better part of his thirties without learning to hold a real conversation. She’s getting to know him, her accidental partner on this mad adventure to another galaxy. It’s not an easy process, either. He’s friendly, but evasive, like he’s always holding one hand behind his back. She has always enjoyed a challenge, though, and she’s patient enough to collect the tidbits he lets slip until she has enough of the puzzle to understand him.

“Oookay,” she says, looking him over one more time to see if he’s going to reveal what this abstract tchotchke is supposed to make up for. “Thank you. I’ll put it over here.”

“Put it closer to the light,” he suggests. She moves it next to her desk lamp. The holes in it — it’s definitely not a vase — leave an irregular shadowy pattern on the desk, and the glass bits reflect spots of color. She can’t help but run her hand over them to see the specks of red and violet dotting her skin.

When she looks back up at him, he’s smiling for real. He covers it fast, though, like she’s seen too much. Interesting.

“Anyway, I hope you like it,” he says, and she considers the possibility that maybe he really did just bring her something because he was thinking about her. “You could put pens in it or something.”

They’re as close to a paperless — and pen-less — office as she’s ever been in, three million light-years from the nearest Staples, but she knows that’s not really what he’s after. “I like it,” she assures him. “I wish I knew what it _is_—” and they chuckle together, “—but I do like it. Thank you.”

“Good,” he says, looking suspiciously relieved, and then escapes before she can ask any follow-up questions. She assumes the real reason behind it will come to light soon enough.

When it doesn’t, she adds this smaller mystery to the larger one she’s solving about him, this man who communicates in sarcasm and trinkets. She’s not sure what it means to him, but she makes a point of keeping the not-vase on her desk where he can see it.

She has next to no hope of figuring out what most of the objects he brings her are supposed to be, but John? One day soon, she’ll figure him out.


End file.
